Second Czech GLAM meeting

Participants of the 2nd Czech GLAM meeting

Transport of the Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib to an alternative place, because the museum is under renovation

The 2nd Czech GLAM meeting took place in Prague, February 12, 2012. Nine Wikimedians attended; Aktron, Gampe, Juandev, Mormegil and Utar were attending personally, other four were online and several other people came at least for a while via EtherPad(in Czech), which we used to write group notes.

Invitations for this meeting were sent to the Czech Village Pump, the mailing list of the Czech GLAM, the IRC channel and also to the Facebook GLAM page. Within 5 hours we discussed problems of copyright and licenses (presented by Mormegil), the current state of our project, and its future grow and ways of promotion.

Current state of the Czech GLAM

We are trying to begin cooperation with various Czech cultural institutions, but the negotiations have not been finished yet. Their result is uncertain, because there seems to be a lack of motivation in the institutions.

Two projects have already been started. One of them is cooperation with a small regional Museum of Christmas Cribs(in Czech) in Třebechovice pod Orebem. The English Wikipedia article Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib was featured on the English Wikipedia Main Page in the Did You Know? section on the 31 January 2012 and had almost 5000 views on that day. The work on the articles connected with the topic of the project continues. The results are going to be shown to the founder of the museum, and we hope that the museum will subsequently release some of their photographs under a free license. The project is led by Gampe.

Another running project, which had already started before the Czech GLAM was founded, is cooperation with the National Technical Library in Prague. Danny B. is negotiating the release and possibilities of utilisation of their Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System. He and Mormegil hope to make software, which would enable interconnecting this system with Wikipedia articles. The software would be universal and could be also used with other cultural institutions. No more information is available at the moment.

Conclusion

Participants agreed that it is important to write reports and to promote the project in various ways. All of them have taken some task to do. Czech Glam members are interested in keeping in touch with cultural institutions and will try doing so.

All participants evaluated the meeting positively. The next one will be held within 3 months. All interested people are invited to our Czech GLAM(in Czech) pages and to join our Facebook group.

In conclusion we would like to thank Jirka O., who provided the place for meeting, Mormegil for his time and patience, Utar for catering and to all the participants who contributed with some information or came to have a look. We are glad the Czech Wikipedians seem interested in the Czech GLAM projects.

Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia Conference

Participants of the discussion on the GLAM cooperation at the Serbian conference

Aktron took part in the Serbian GLAM conference, held in Belgrade between 24 and 25 February 2012. He presented here information about the Czech GLAM in the Serbian language (see the online presentation in English) and also took part in most of the conference events. He met not only Serbians Wikimedians and cultural institution employees, but also Wikimedians from France and India, thanks to which he could bring back a lot of valuable knowledge and important experience and present it to Czech GLAM members. We thank him for his report.

Czech GLAM is going to join Wiki Loves Monuments

Wikimedians Limojoe and Aktron have informed the Czech GLAM group about the possibility to cooperate with the international project Wiki Loves Monuments, which is related to the goals of GLAM.